Mick Hartley

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In Muswell Hill

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But something happened today that I can’t stay silent about.

I was out walking in Muswell Hill with my daughter when we saw a friend of mine’s daughter crying.

She had just witnessed a group of people cutting down the yellow ribbons — put up with consent from the community — that symbolise the hostages still held in Gaza.

I went over to speak to them.

They were all wearing keffiyehs. And they immediately launched into abuse — calling me a “murdering bitch,” saying I was “complicit in genocide,” and that “Jews deserve to die.”

I asked if they understood what the yellow ribbons were for. They didn’t care. I suggested we put up more — with pictures of Palestinians held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, alongside the ribbons — to create something humanitarian, something that acknowledged everyone’s suffering.

They laughed in my face.
Said they didn’t want peace with ‘Jews’.
They didn’t want understanding ‘with Jews’.

They wanted to dehumanise anything ‘Jewish/ related to Israel and the genocide’.

When someone looks you in the eye and says “no one wants to exist with Jews — you are all filth,” it stays with you.

That hate, that poison, it didn’t come from nowhere.

And it’s being legitimised, fed, and spread. And it’s getting bolder.

I know some people will say “don’t give them attention” — but that’s not an option anymore.

Silence isn’t safety.

This is the reality some of us are living with right now. And it needs to be called out.

Continuously associating the Palestinian narrative with violent slogans/ rhetoric does a major disservice to the just and urgent aspirations of the Palestinian people for freedom, self-determination, and independence.

STOP. THE.HATE

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